Beware! Top 12 Scams of Christmas

Beware! Top 12 Scams of Christmas

McAfee exposes the Top 12 Scams of Christmas that criminals plan to use to rip off consumers as they shop online this holiday season.

McAfee's findings from the company's 2012 Holiday Shopping Study shows of the 70% of the surveyed, plan to shop online this holiday season, a surprising 3 in 4 (71%) of them plan to use their mobile devices, and while aware of the risks, they are willing to give away their personal information if they can get something they value in return.

Indian respondents scored the highest amongst all countries in terms of resorting to smart phones to purchase holiday gifts for others for end of year celebrations.

Compared to other countries, India ranks highest (67%) on the metrics of respondents worrying about personal information being stolen while using a mobile app on the smart phone or tablet.

Here are the "12 Scams of Christmas," the dozen most dangerous online scams to watch out for this holiday season, revealed by McAfee.

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Image: A diver dressed as Santa Claus swims with dolphins at Hakkeijima Sea Paradise in Yokohama, south of Tokyo.Photographs: Yuriko Nakao/Reuters.

Beware! Top 12 Scams of Christmas

Many of us use social media sites to connect with family, friends, and co-workers over the holidays, and the cybercriminals know that this is a good place to catch you off guard because we're all "friends," right?

Here are some ways that criminals will use these channels to obtain shopper's gift money, identity or other personal information:

Scammers use channels, like Facebook and Twitter, just like email and websites to scam consumers during the holidays.

Be careful when clicking or liking posts, while taking advantage of contests, ads and special deals that you get from your "friends" that advertise the hottest Holiday gifts (such as the new iPad Mini), exclusive discounts at local stores, holiday-related jobs postings, and your friends' accounts being hacked and sending out fake alerts to all their "friends."

Twitter ads and special discounts for popular gifts are especially huge the week of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and utilize blind, shortened links, many of which could easily be malicious.

Criminals are getting savvier with authentic-looking social ads and deals that take consumers to legitimate looking websites. In order to take advantage of the deals or contests, they ask them for personal information that can obtain a shopper's credit card number, email address, phone number or home address.

Beware! Top 12 Scams of Christmas

As smartphone users we are app crazy, downloading over 25 billion apps for Android devices alone! But as the popularity of applications has grown, so have the chances that you could download a malicious application designed to steal your information or even send out premium-rate text messages without your knowledge.

Beware! Top 12 Scams of Christmas

The kind of excitement and buzz surrounding Apple's new iPhone 5 or iPad Mini is just what cybercrooks dream of when they plot their scams.

They will mention must-have holiday gifts in dangerous links, phony contests (example: "Free iPad") and phishing emails as a way to grab computer users' attention to get you to reveal personal information or click on a dangerous link that could download malware onto your machine.

Beware! Top 12 Scams of Christmas

People around the world will use Skype to connect with loved ones this holiday season, but they should be aware of a new Skype message scam that attempts to infect their machine, and even hold their files for ransom.

Beware! Top 12 Scams of Christmas

"SMiSishing" is phishing via text message. Just like with email phishing, the scammer tries to lure you into revealing information or performing an action you normally wouldn't do by pretending to be a legitimate organization.

Beware! Top 12 Scams of Christmas

E-cards are a popular way to send a quick "thank you" or holiday greeting, but some are malicious and may contain spyware or viruses that download onto your computer once you click on the link to view the greeting.

Beware! Top 12 Scams of Christmas

Online classified sites may be a great place to look for holiday gifts and part-time jobs, but beware of phony offers that ask for too much personal information or ask you to wire funds via Western Union, since these are most likely scams.